Population Growth and Age Distribution

The population of El Salvador increased from 1.9 million inhabitants
in 1950 to 4.1 million in 1975 and 4.7 million in 1984. It was projected
to increase to 8.8 million by the year 2000. In other words, the
population would have doubled in each quarter-century since 1950. This
high growth rate was a result of three main factors characteristic not
only of El Salvador but also of Central America as a whole: a rapidly
falling death rate, a continued high birth rate, and a very young
population, i.e., a high proportion of the national population under age
twenty.

Although there was some variance in figures between El Salvador's
census reports and estimates by the United Nations Latin American Center
for Demography (Centro Latinoamericano de Demografia--CELADE), there was
agreement on basic birth and death statistics. The annual death rate
per 1,000 inhabitants, however, declined by approximately one-third
during the same period, falling from 21.3 to 13, and this decline
contributed to the high rate of national population increase.

From 1970 to 2000, a continuing decline in both birth rates and death
rates was anticipated. Studies projected a gradual fall in the crude
birth rate from 42.2 in 1970-75 to 33.5 in 1995-2000 and in the crude
death rate from 11.1 in 1970-75 to 7.2 in 1985- 90 and 5.6 in 1995-2000. These two trends would operate more or less in tandem,
however, so that the rate of natural increase, though declining, would
still hover at around 3 percent. The overall population was very young;
the median age in the country declined from nineteen in 1950 to
seventeen in 1975, and 41.3 percent were projected to be under age
fifteen by the year 2000. It is noteworthy here that life expectancy at
birth improved from approximately forty-six years in the 1950s to
fifty-nine years in 1977 and to sixty-five years in 1984 (sixty-three
years for males and sixty-six for females), largely as a result of mass
immunization schemes and control of disease-bearing insects. Life
expectancy was expected to reach sixty-nine to seventy years in
1995-2000.

Birth rates showed that total fertility rates (the number of children
a woman would bear in her lifetime if she experienced average fertility)
ranged from approximately 6.1 to 6.3 in the mid-1970s, down from 6.7 in
1961. Analysts projected that this rate would drop to 4.4 in 1995-2000.
The decrease in the level of fertility since 1961 was seen in the
twenty-to thirty-nine-year- old age-group.

Family planning programs of both the privately organized Salvadoran
Demographic Association, which was founded in 1962 and began operations
in 1967, and (after 1971) government agencies under the Ministry of
Public Health and Social Services probably contributed to this decline
in fertility rates. The groups lobbied for family planning programs,
provided family planning clinics, and dispensed birth control
information and devices. Female sterilization was the most common birth
control method because it is final and does not require frequent
checkups or visits to clinics for additional supplies. The need for
clinic visits has associated use of oral contraceptives in the popular
mind with illness. In addition, there were fewer religious objections to
sterilization. At the same time, abortions also were widely practiced.
Abortion was illegal in El Salvador, and improperly performed abortions
were common. They were the third leading cause of hospital admissions in
1975, constituting 24 of every 1,000 admissions, according to a sample
survey.

Fertility rates showed significant contrasts between urban and rural
settings. In 1975 the birth rate per 1,000 women in rural areas was
estimated at 46 to 47, whereas in urban areas it stood at approximately
34 to 35 (31 to 33 for the San Salvador metropolitan area). On average,
by age thirty-five, rural women had seven children while urban women had
only five. By the end of their childbearing years, rural women, on
average, had eight children, and urban women had six. Given the markedly
inferior health conditions of the countryside, however, of the two
additional children born to rural women, only one would survive. The
number of children under age one per 1,000 women between ages fifteen
and forty-four declined by 16.5 percent in urban areas from 1961 to
1971, while it remained essentially unchanged over that same time period
in rural areas.

Disparate fertility rates underscored the point that El Salvador
continued to be a rural country in the late 1980s, "rural" in
this context including all population in towns of less than 20,000. In
fact, El Salvador showed the highest rural population increase--82
percent from 1961 to 1980--in Latin America.